


Introspection

by ShannonPhillips



Series: A Little Less Attitude and a Little More Altitude [4]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:39:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonPhillips/pseuds/ShannonPhillips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after Gorse, it's obvious that Kanan and Hera make a good team. But their growing intimacy leaves Kanan yearning for more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Introspection

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [gondalsqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen) for beta reading!

“ _Why_ are you doing this, Jarrus?”

It wasn’t really the time for introspection—seeing as he was hanging by his clenched fists from the strut work of an Imperial aerial station, and below him was nothing but a long drop into the roiling, lightning-flecked perpetual tornado of poisonous gases that passed for atmosphere on this rock—but Hera picked up the question that Kanan had meant for himself. Her voice, rich and reassuring and perhaps a tiny bit exasperated, crackled through the comlink. “You’re doing it because I need insight into the massive personnel transfers that have gone through Xerxes Station in the past standard year.”

“Oh yeah?”  Kanan grunted. “Could’ve sworn I had a better reason.” He’d been running with Hera Syndulla for three months now, and he’d _mostly_ laid off the cheesy pick-up lines, but sometimes he couldn’t quite help himself. Especially when her voice was warm and intimate in his ear.

But then the footfalls of an approaching stormtrooper alerted him to the changing of the guard: he breathed in, drawing strength and guidance from the Force that surrounded him, and launched himself into the spinning upwards leap that would land him on the upper catwalk in a position to side-kick the approaching guard.

After that, it was all about following the plan.

Running. Shooting. Five minutes of hiding in a maintenance closet. When the whole station shuddered and the klaxons went off, Kanan knew that Hera had swooped in close for a strafing run. She wouldn’t be able to keep it up—the TIEs would be mobilizing even now, and she’d have to retreat—but it was the distraction Kanan needed in order to get access to the datacenter.

Four minutes to disable the guards. Two to inject the data spike and let it do its work. While he was cooling his heels, he decided to see what he could do with the credentials from the Imperial lackeys he’d subdued. Hm, self-destruct? That’s interesting, what the hell.

Another six minutes to make his way back onto the outer struts. “Ready for pickup, _Ghost_ ,” he said into the comlink.

“Little busy here!” Hera’s voice was tense, but not panicked. “There’s _twice_ the number of TIEs we expected.”

“Two wings?” Kanan said. “Blast! They must have scheduled another transfer!”

“I can handle it. Just…cool your heels.”

Kanan glanced down into the electric inferno below, then decided that had been a bad idea. Heights didn’t bother him as a general rule, but “choking, poisoned, suffocated, lightning-fried _and_ torn to pieces by gale-force winds” seemed like a bad way to go. He tried to keep his voice nonchalant as he said: “Is this a good time to tell you that I set the station-wide self-destruct?”

“You did _what_?”

“Ten,” Kanan said. “Nine.”

“On my way.”

He saw a streak of light against the indigo sky. A exploding TIE? Couldn’t have been the _Ghost_ , he would have felt it. Although a second later, he second-guessed his own conviction. It’s not like he and Hera were _that_ close...despite his repeated offers.

“Seven,” Kanan said. “Six.”

“Jump.”

“What?”

“Jump!” Hera shouted, and so he did—throwing himself as far from the station as he could in a controlled swan-dive. Then the clouds beneath him parted to reveal Hera’s Corellian freighter, rising from the hellish storm like grace cast in durasteel. Kanan tucked in his shoulders and knees so he could tumble round and land on his feet, braking his fall with a Force assist. For a moment he balanced on the ship in flight. Then the cargo hatch yawned open, and he slipped inside.

Not a second too soon. Kanan felt more than heard the station’s explosion, though the roar of it echoed through his bones and sent the _Ghost_ spinning back into the lower-atmosphere tempest. Kanan was knocked to the deck, and just as he got his feet under himself, up a lightning strike sizzled against the hull and sent him staggering again.

He made it to the ladder and took it three rungs at a time. “Hera!” he shouted as soon as he’d reached the cockpit. “Get us out of here!”

“Did you get the crew manifests?” she shouted back, even as she danced the ship between massive arcs of lightning.

“I got ‘em! Let’s go!”

Her fingers moved swiftly over the control panel. “Sure you don’t want to admire the view?” But even as she spoke, the _Ghost_ was breaking free of atmosphere, heading for the beautiful black safety of space.

 _Trust me_ , Kanan thought, _I’m admiring it_ —but that’s the kind of thing he had learned to leave unsaid. He didn’t like the way her face smoothed out when he tried those lines. As if she was putting on a mask: a pleasant, evasive demeanor she’d developed long ago to shut down unwanted advances without escalating a conflict.

Kanan understood about masks. But he never wanted to be the reason she needed one.

So he just quietly settled into the co-pilot’s seat, and had the reward of Hera’s small and genuine smile once they’d made hyperspace and the stars turned to smears around them. “You all right?” she said, turning toward him. Then she was leaning in, her fingers brushing his face. “You’re bleeding.”

“Oh, did one of them tag me?” He managed to keep his voice pretty light, even as all his awareness contracted to the single point that was Hera’s fingers on his skin.

“Yeah, I’ll get the medkit.”

He took a deep breath as she stood. There was some pain around his mouth. Probably a split lip. He liked letting Hera doctor him, but sometimes it also rattled him in a strange way.

Not, like, a sexy way. Hera perpetually rattled him in _that_ way, but Kanan knew how to shut down his own responses when they became too distracting. It was something deeper than lust that left him so off-kilter.

She was back in a moment with the medkit. Kanan watched her as she laid out the disinfectant and the medstrips, working with brisk, unhurried efficiency. Her hands were steady and gentle as she carefully dabbed at his lip. He held still, studying her face. Her eyes met his for a moment and she smiled.

And there it was, the clenching in his gut, the rush of complicated emotion. Because it felt so _right_ to put himself in her hands, to let her touch him wherever she would. These moments of intimacy between them were so natural and so easy.

And yet—so artificial, and so limited. Another moment and she was done. She’d pulled back, she was putting the supplies away, and he _couldn’t_ reach for her. He couldn’t touch her the way she’d touched him. Couldn’t brush his fingers across her mouth, couldn’t pull her closer, couldn’t ask her to surrender in the way that he had already surrendered to her. Maybe someday she’d give him that trust—but not yet, and never if he pushed too hard.

It wasn’t lust, or it wasn’t only lust. It was a longing for something he wasn’t prepared to name. Something that seemed, at moments, to exist between them already. It was there, he _felt_ it—and then it was gone.

“Kanan?” she said, one delicate eyebrow lifting in concern. He swallowed hard.

“I’m fine,” he said, and fumbled for the chip that had been the entire ostensible point of this exercise. _Why are you doing this, Jarrus?_ “Here. Your manifests.”

Her eyes sparkled. She’d be up all night poring over the data. Like a kid in a candy store, except that instead of candy it would be a lot of really dense, really boring personnel records. Still, Kanan couldn’t help but grin back at her.

“Gonna go cool down,” he said, pushing up to his feet. “Call if you find something.”

Inside his cabin, he stripped down to his underwear and worked through a series of stretches. Then he sat cross-legged on the deck and tried to clear his mind. Images and sense-memories lingered, but he pushed them away. Eventually he managed to attain a state of in-the-moment awareness that usually brought peace. He'd only started meditating again recently; it was only recently that he could stand to take a clear look inside.

But in this moment, awareness was no escape. It only made him more _aware_ of the lingering, aching sense of loneliness and even grief that he was carrying. How could he so acutely miss an intimacy he’d never had?

He sighed and opened his eyes. Powerful emotions couldn’t be simply repressed, or they’d end up ruling him. He knew exactly why he was here, and it wasn’t just the chance to put a bootprint on the Empire’s ass. The bond between himself and Hera Syndulla was undeniable. She felt it too; he was sure of that much.

But whether they’d ever be able to let it amount to something—that, he couldn’t know.

Kanan stood, paced three strides to the door, then turned on his heel and paced back to the bunk. He threw himself down on it and closed his eyes again.

He’d been channeling his frustration and his desires mostly into the missions. Sometimes, when his body needed it, he brought himself release. He always thought of Hera at those times, which seemed like it might be exacerbating the problem. But then, repression and denial were exacerbating the problem too.

He lay there, silently wrestling with the question, until at last he slid a hand inside his underwear and thought of Hera.

He thought of the way she’d looked at him and smiled. He thought of her hands moving over his skin. He thought of the sway of her hips and lekku as she’d bent down to examine his lip.

What he’d wanted to do was to pull her even closer, to draw her face down to his and kiss her. He could spend a lot of time kissing her. Kissing her lips, kissing her throat, kissing her earcones and lekku.

He thought about undressing her. Thought about what her body would look like under that flight suit. Thought about pulling her naked body against his own—and then Kanan turned his face toward the bulkhead and stifled a groan.

Lying there with his fist wrapped around his cock, trying to be mostly quiet and still, Kanan imagined that perhaps with a lover Hera would also be fairly quiet. Not inhibited, exactly, but she seemed like the type who might try to hold in her own responses. He could imagine her giving small, tight shivers as he touched and kissed her. Tiny little moans that she’d try to swallow. But she’d take his hands and guide them to the places that she wanted to be touched. _There_ , she’d whisper, quivering—

His breath came faster, and he stroked himself in a quick, urgent rhythm. In this fantasy he usually pictured her on top. It would be after he’d explored all her secret and sensitive places, and brought her to such a peak of arousal—not unlike the peak Kanan was now quickly approaching—that she could no longer conceal her desire. She’d push him down, she’d straddle him, and he’d give her everything she needed. He thought of Hera’s breasts bouncing, skin glistening with sweat, and her face tense with ecstacy. He thought of her body clenched around him, instead of his own fist.

And then he came, groaning and shuddering, hips jerking involuntarily as the waves of release swept through him. He could feel some of his tension and frustration draining away as well. For a few moments in the aftermath he simply lay there, having finally found the state of peace he’d failed to achieve in meditation.

But peace was fleeting, and there was always the next mission. With a sigh, Kanan swung his legs off the bunk and went to go clean up.

After all, Hera might need him.


End file.
